25 best spy movies ever – and where to watch them
We've hidden our list of the finest spy films in plain sight. Or have we?
Sssh, don’t say anything – we’re being watched. And that’s because we’re about to reveal a very sensitive piece of information: the identities of the best spy movies on the planet. And the locations (i.e. the UK streaming services) where they can be found.
From the OTT ludicrousness of early Bond movies, via the techno-espionage of Mission: Impossible, to the grubby nicotine-stained spy games of John Le Carré’s grey-shaded anti-heroes, there’s a secret agent film out there for everyone.
So it’s time to grab some popcorn, get comfy and go back to the Cold War. The best spy movies, in no particular order, are…
The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
Roger Moore’s third Bond flick was absurd, camp and utterly brilliant. The Spy Who Loved Me had exotic locations, gadgetry, women (notably Barbara Bach) and one of the greatest movie cars of all time in its amphibious Lotus Esprit.
The film’s apéritif, in which Bond makes his daring escape by skiing off a cliff before unfurling a Union Jack parachute, had 1977 cinemagoers on their feet with applause. And then Carly Simon broke into the title theme: “Nobody Does It Better”. Superb.
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Mission: Impossible (1996)
Hi-tech gadgets, exploding aquariums and cryptic biblical references: is there nothing Mission: Impossible doesn’t have?
Tom Cruise plays IMF agent Ethan Hunt, framed for the murder of his entire team. His fight to be exonerated takes him into the depths of the CIA headquarters and across most of Europe, before unlikely face masks and chewing gum explosions save the day.
Despite the series going to ever more ridiculous heights (almost literally, given the nature of some of Cruise’s death-defying aerial stunts) the Brian de Palma-directed original is arguably the best of the bunch, largely because of its twisty-turny plot and because it actually forces Cruise to act as part of a team. Still, fans of the TV series still haven’t forgiven the producers for recasting Peter Graves – and for what they did to his character.
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The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
Matt Damon stars as the anti-Bond Jason Bourne in this spy thriller on steroids (although, ironically, the Daniel Craig-era Bond definitely has a touch of the Bourne about him). This second instalment of the Bourne series, and the first to be directed by Paul Greengrass, sees the hero out for revenge following the murder of his girlfriend.
As a rogue operative, Bourne is attacked from every side, fighting conspiracy, the Russians and the CIA alike. But it’s the mystery surrounding Bourne’s personal history that really keeps the suspense ticking.
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The 39 Steps (1935)
If you’ve ever read John Buchan’s 1915 novel, you too might be wondering how this rather pedestrian thriller has managed to spawn no fewer than four major film adaptations. In this version, director Alfred Hitchcock jettisoned Buchan’s odd plot but took his hero, Richard Hannay, on a pacy Scottish adventure with more twists than a cocktail convention.
Take our advice: ignore the book and the other three films. On the strength of this movie, The 39 Steps is a spy story that genuinely ought to belong to Hitchcock.
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The Lives of Others (2006)
Set in 1980s Communist East Germany, this Oscar-winning thriller is gripping enough to convert the most ardent of subtitle detesters into an avid fan of independent European cinema.
As a zealous secret police agent listens in on the daily lives of a suspected dissident writer and his girlfriend, he slowly starts to question the morality of his work and his beliefs – leading to a shattering conclusion. To reveal more of the ins and outs of this tense and ultimately moving film would be to deaden its impact, but suffice to say this may be one of the finest foreign language movies of the century so far – and a quiet reminder that we might share more with our enemies than we think.
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Charade (1963)
Audrey Hepburn plays Reggie, a widow who’s pursued through Paris by a gang of ex-OSS agents trying to track down her husband’s ill-gotten fortune. Cary Grant is Peter, a charming stranger who helps her – but is there more to him than meets the eye?
Everyone’s wearing a mask in this frothy, fun escapade. It’s as cool as… well, as Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn running around 1960s Paris in a comedy adventure caper.
The Tailor of Panama (2001)
Pierce Brosnan stakes a place in our list of the best spy movies not via his patchy run of 1990s Bond flicks (although we’ll always have a soft spot for Goldeneye) but via the far more measured gait of The Tailor of Panama, directed by the great John Boorman. Geoffrey Rush plays the eponymous suitmaker in this adaptation of John Le Carré’s novel, thought in turn to be based on Graham Greene’s classic book Our Man in Havana. That’s some impeccable spy pedigree right there, and no mistaking. Suits you, sir.
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Eye of the Needle (1981)
Typical. Donald Sutherland has spent the first four years of WWII in England, tapping coded messages back to Germany with his nasty Nazi fingers, but when he finally stumbles onto something really juicy – the D-Day landing locations – he gets shipwrecked before he can Morse it all up.
And that’s where this Ken Follett-penned suspense thriller gets thrilling and suspenseful. When the filthy spy washes up on a remote British island and becomes embroiled in a love triangle with Kate Nelligan and her crippled husband, all while still trying to contact his Aryan brethren.
The real suspense, of course, in is finding out whether a Canadian playing a German pretending to be an Englishman can possibly keep his accent together until the big finale.
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OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006)
Starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, and directed by Michel Hazanavicius (aka the trio behind Oscar-winning The Artist) OSS 117 is a loving homage to a bygone era of film-making. On this occasion, the trio tackles the 1960s Eurospy films that sprang up in the wake of James Bond’s success.
Dujardin plays Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath – the self-important, culturally-insensitive secret agent OSS 117. He’s assigned to investigate the murder of a colleague in Cairo, which he does in the manner of Inspector Clouseau parachuted into a Connery-era Bond film. Splendidly daft.
Burn After Reading (2008)
Burn After Reading might be the Coen brothers’ “spy movie”, but it has far more in common with a bedroom farce than your typical espionage thriller.
This black comedy follows a cavalcade of awful human beings – played by such luminaries as Frances McDormand, George Clooney, John Malkovich, Tilda Swinton and, in one of his comedic highlights, Brad Pitt – who find their lives intersecting in various ways, all against the backdrop of Virginia, Washington DC and the US intelligence community. While it might sound like lightweight fare, a clever and quirky follow-up to the creepy bleakness of the Coens’ previous film No Country for Old Men, Burn After Reading holds a similar cynical darkness in its core – it’s just really, really funny too.
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Body of Lies (2008)
Leonardo Dicaprio stars as CIA agent Roger Ferris, a case officer tasked with tracking down a terrorist mastermind in Jordan using all his street contacts and local knowledge.
Meanwhile his superior, a doughy Russell Crowe, takes an “end justifies the means” approach, shielded from the situation on the ground by distance and technology. Naturally, the pair rub each other up the wrong way, making for an interesting look at the clash between different branches of the intelligence service.
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The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
Alfred Hitchcock directs as Dr. Ben McKenna’s family holiday in Africa takes a deadly turn. An acquaintance is murdered on a bus – but not before divulging details of an assassination plot in London. The assassins fear that their plan may be foiled, so kidnap McKenna’s son as leverage. Not even Cliff Richard could sing this summer holiday into a merry affair.
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Three Days of the Condor (1975)
One minute you’re a mild-mannered CIA bookworm popping out of your New York office for lunch. The next minute you return to find all of your colleagues dead – and you’re next on the hitlist. Not a typical day at work is it? Unfortunately, that’s the situation that Robert Redford’s Joe Turner (codename: Condor) finds himself in, as he strives to uncover the mystery without meeting the same ugly demise; but who, if anyone, can he trust? Paranoid and taut, this is arguably the best of the classic 1970s conspiracy thrillers.
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Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
The first and best Austin Powers film sees Mike Myers artfully play both Powers (a priapic 1960’s spy with questionable dental hygiene) and Dr. Evil, an unimaginatively-named super-villain with a rebellious teenage son. Jokes and puns fly thick and fast as the bumbling Myers and his glamourous sidekick (Elizabeth Hurley) attempt to thwart Dr. Evil’s nefarious plans.
Gleefully paying homage to (and spoofing) everything from the 1960s Casino Royale to Adam Adamant Lives!, this is possibly Myers’ best work – even if the late-1990s humour doesn’t quite land as comfortably today as it did back then.
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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2003)
Chuck Barris (Sam Rockwell) is a successful television show producer who finds himself lured into the shadowly world of the CIA and transformed into an unlikely contract killer. He balances both worlds with ease at first, chaperoning gameshow winners to cities which conveniently happen to harbour his targets.
But leading a double life is never easy, and soon both worlds begin to crumble around him in this enjoyable tall tale from director George Clooney (who also plays Barris’s handler). And here we thought alternating between a Mac and a PC was tricky.
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Black Book (2006)
This Dutch World War II film stars Carice van Houten as Jewish spy Rachel Rosenthal. Working for the Dutch resistance, Ronsenthal seduces a German officer to get inside the local Nazi intelligence organisation – and promptly falls in love with him. With wartime gadgetry and double agents, Black Book is proof that you don’t need hi-tech kit to be a spy.
Director Paul Verhoeven – the man behind Robocop, Starship Troopers and, er, Showgirls – actually lived through the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. This lends a touch of versimilitude to Black Book, and sets it about as far apart from his earlier work as it’s possible to get.
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La Femme Nikita (1990)
Anne Parillaud stars as the titular femme fatale. She’s a teenage junkie who’s taken under the wing of a shadowy government agency after a robbery gone wrong ends with a policeman dead and her in jail. She’s given a choice: work as a sleeper assassin or her fake suicide will become all too real.
Nikita’s trained up to be a killer in high heels and a little black dress, but when a mission goes awry, Jean Reno’s ruthless “Cleaner” (who bears more than a slight resemblence to his later role in Leon) is sent in. Director Luc Besson lays on the clinical, European gloss with a trowel in this slick and stylish film.
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North By Northwest (1959)
Ad executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is the victim of the world’s worst case of mistaken identity when a group of foreign spies get it into their heads that he’s a government agent. What follows is the ultimate Hitchcock picture: an innocent man forced on the run through a series of iconic set pieces – including the famous crop duster chase and a thrilling climax atop Mount Rushmore. Oozes Mad Men-era cool.
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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
There’s no room for Bond- or Bourne-style heroics in this understated drama – but it’s without a doubt one of the best spy movies of recent times. Based on the novel by John Le Carré, it populates the world of espionage with sad, shabby men who play chess with other people’s lives. Gary Oldman’s George Smiley is one such figure, brought out of enforced retirement to track down a Soviet mole in the Circus, Le Carré’s fictionalised British intelligence service. Smiley’s an unobtrusive, unassuming desk jockey in middle age, but every so often we see the merest glimpse of something – steel, cunning, ruthlessness – that suggests that, yes, still waters really do run deep.
Director Tomas Alfredson imbues the 1970s setting with a melancholy air, as his characters trudge through nicotine-stained offices and rain-sodden London streets; there’s no shortage of beige in the film’s palette. Oldman gives a stellar performance opposite a Who’s Who of British thespians, including John Hurt, Colin Firth, Kathy Burke, Mark Strong, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy.
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The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
American soldiers brainwashed during the Korean War are at the heart of this black and white political thriller directed by John Frankenheimer. Those pesky communists are to blame for making a right-wing Staff Sergeant (Frank Sinatra) turn against his own in an incredible Cold War classic that’s almost universally loved by those hard-to-please film critics.
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Munich (2005)
Steven Spielberg tells the story of a group of Mossad agents tasked with tracking down and killing those responsible for the 1972 Olympics massacre. Based on – but not completely true to – accounts of the real-life Operation Wrath of God, Munich mixes standard spy thrills with some of the controversial debate around Israeli intelligence.
It was never going to satisfy everyone, but captures the “eye for an eye” mentality as it takes us on a supremely well-made international spy chase.
Watch Munich on Paramount+ (Prime Video channel)
True Lies (1994)
Played – as only he could – by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harry Tasker is an altogether different sort of spy to most of the characters in this list. He shoots before he thinks and does covert, under-the-radar things like getting into a lift on horseback. Yet despite all this, he’s still somehow managed to convince his wife Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis) that he’s a mild-mannered salesman. So much so that she decides to spice up her life by engaging in an affair.
Harry’s web of lies soon begins to unravel, as does his marriage, so he decides to spice up Helen’s life by sending her on a fake “mission.” Only for things to get much less fake when a band of Islamic extremists threaten Miami with unprecedented destruction. It’s all harmless fun really: explosions, plenty of Arnie one-liners… and a nuclear warhead or two.
The Ipcress File (1965)
This Michael Caine classic may have been produced by the team behind the Bond films, but its hero Harry Palmer is the antithesis of Ian Fleming’s suave super-spy. While Connery’s Bond was scoffing at the “noise” of the Beatles, Caine’s Palmer was wooing 1960s dollybirds by driving them home in his Ford Zephyr and rustling up supper.
Called in to investigate a scientist’s disappearance, Palmer’s mission takes a turn for the psychedelic when he’s subjected to brainwashing. How very Swinging 60s!
Watch The Ipcress File on Britbox (Prime Video channel)
Goldfinger (1964)
Hear us out, but James Bond might be the most useless secret agent in the world.
In his third cinematic outing Bond does very little spying. In fact, he actually saves the day by being repeatedly knocked out and conveyed by the villains to a new location, where they tell him all about their wicked plans. And he doesn’t even manage to disarm the bomb at the end: that job is left to an unnamed scientist.
Nevertheless, we adore Goldfinger – it’s the quintessential Bond film. When 007’s about to get sliced in half, you could cut the tension in the air with… well, with a laser beam. And who could forget the brilliantly-named Pussy Galore? For better or worse, they don’t make them like this anymore.
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Stephen Graves
Online Deputy Editor With contributions from
